Michael Davitt

Michael Davitt (25 March 1846-30 May 1906) was the Irish Parliamentary Party MP for North East Cork in 1893 (succeeding William O'Brien and preceding William Abraham) and for East Kerry form 1895 to 26 October 1899 (succeeding Jeremiah Sheehan and preceding James Roche).

Biography
Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo, Ireland on 25 March 1846, and he was raised in a Gaelic-speaking, Irish nationalist family. His family settled in Haslingden, Lancashire, England due to the Great Famine, and, while working in a cotton mill, he lost his right arm. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1865, following the example of most other working-class Irishmen in England. In 1870, he was sentenced to 15 years of penal servitude for his IRB involvement, but he was paroled in 1877 after the Home Rule League succeeded in negotiating an amnesty for IRB prisoners. He then became a member of the IRB Supreme Council, but he also became politically involved with the Irish Parliamentary Party. In 1879, he founded the Land League to campaign for fairer tenancy agreements, and Home Rule crusader Charles Stewart Parnell became the League's first president. Davitt was imprisoned once again in 1881, and he was released in May 1882. He later campaigned for land nationalization and an alliance between the British working-class, Irish laborers, and tenant farmers; his radicalism made him an unpopular figure. He supported Keir Hardie in founding the Labour Party, but, as the Home Rule cause required its Liberal alliance in order to efficiently campaign for its goals - Davitt declined membership in the new party, to Hardie's chagrin. Davitt went on to serve as an MP in 1893 and from 1895 to 1899, when he resigned in protest at the start of the Second Boer War. He died in 1906.